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Repair a Puncture in a Bike Tire Inner Tube

Edited by Thor, Crystal, Eng, Inukshuk

3 Parts:

Steps

Video: Repair a Bike Tire Puncture

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Hello and welcome to VisiHow. Today I'm going to show you how to repair a puncture in an inner tube in a mountain bike, BMX, or touring bike.

Repair Bike Tire Puncture.mp4~canvas15 376464.jpg

Steps

1
The first step is to inflate the tire in order to find the puncture
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Take off the valve cap and attach a pump to inflate the tire.

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2
Once the tire is inflated, you're going to search for the puncture
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To do this you can put the inner tube in a bowl of water. The bubbles will reveal where the puncture is. If you don't have a bowl of water, or you're on the road and this happens while you're cycling, then inflating the tire and searching for the hole is your other alternative.

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3
Once the tire is inflated, you can sometimes hear the air escaping from the hole, you can put your finger over it and feel the air escaping
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If you cannot hear the air escaping but think there may be a hole, you can take some saliva and rub it over the potential hole. This would make a sound, and bubbles would also appear.
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4
Now that you've found the hole, we need to repair it
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The first thing to do is to take your puncture repair kit, and mark the hole using chalk or a crayon, because when the glue is put on the hole may become invisible. To do this, make a mark along the horizontal axis and the vertical axis with the hole being in the center, where the lines cross, that indicates where the hole is.

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5
The next stage is to use some sandpaper just to remove debris and to flatten the surface so that the patch will effectively stick over the hole
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6
Once that is done, we're going to take some puncture repair glue, and we're going to make a large patch of glue, larger than then patch that we're going to put on
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This way the patch will stick all the way around and not come undone at the edges. We are going to leave the glue for a minute or so to dry. We do not want it to dry completely, but enough that when the patch is applied it sticks instantly.

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7
It is important now to deflate the tire
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8
The next stage is to take the patch from your puncture repair kit, choosing the correct size for the hole
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We're going to place the patch over the hole and squeeze the rubber and the patch together. Hold that for a couple minutes, making sure you're squeezing each area of the patch, applying firm pressure to ensure each area is stuck on equally and there are no gaps for air to escape.

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9
Next, we're going to remove the piece of plastic
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Some patches have different styles, some won't have the piece of plastic and will just have the sticky black sheet.
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10
If the patch feels secure, the next stage is to make sure the glue around the patch is no longer sticky by rubbing the inner tube
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We do not want it to stick to the tire or the rim.
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11
Now, as you can see, the patch has been applied and the inner tube is ready to be inserted back into the tire and can be used again
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12
This is how to repair a puncture in an inner tube
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